Saudi national Hanan Faiz Al-Shehri is a one-of-a-kind exponent of yoga. Yoga is a collection of physical, mental and spiritual practices or disciplines which came from ancient India. Its concepts are known to many, but not many are adventurous enough to try it. At a session at her studio in Jeddah, she explained to Arab News the power of breathing.
She taught the class how to breathe in a way that relaxed their bodies. It was intense and required someone who is truly dedicated. Going by the response she is getting, it is easy to say that yoga is catching on in Saudi Arabia.
One wonders how the quintessential Jeddawi got into yoga. “It started,” Hanan explained, “by my being in a state of utter loss at a certain time of my life and I was watching the Discovery Channel with my dad. I was mesmerized by a kid, aka Buddha Boy, who was attempting a seven-year meditation.”
“It blew my mind how this person could just let go of everything known to him and commit to meditate and only meditate. I had been doing simple yoga on a daily basis, so it became a part of my lifestyle. It was a discipline I needed at the time. I looked over at my dad and said, ‘I’m going to Nepal.’ He saw the look on my face and knew I wasn’t joking. Twenty-four hours later, I was boarding a plane to Nepal.”
On arrival in Nepal, she was treated as a foreigner. “But the next day, I let go of all that and my guide took me to my first abode; it was something I never thought I’d experience. Seeing my new accommodations, all I could think to myself was ‘This just got real.’ My room was very small with only a mattress on the floor, some sort of bathroom and a window. That’s it! The whole purpose of being there is to learn to find yourself, through a spiritual path, channeling your positive energy and concentrating on the positive aspects of your life. It was the trip of a lifetime.”
Hanan said she had not always been an outgoing and adventurous person.
“I had some superficial life goals but I’d always leaned toward helping people. When I graduated from high school, I told my parents that I wanted to help people so I got a degree in nursing. A few years after that I moved into the corporate world and was engulfed by it. I kept moving up until I reached what I thought at the time was the peak of my success. Inside, however, I felt there was more to life than superficial surroundings. Nepal happened at that time; my whole perspective on life shifted and I have no regrets,” she said.
Hanan wanted to learn more and the only way was to get certified.
“I went to India and stayed for a month and a half at the Ashtak Yoga School. I was in a course so intense that you barely had time to do anything. For 12 hours a day, you meditate, do yoga and study. It’s not playing; it’s an aggressive and comprehensive curriculum.”
Yoga isn’t for everyone. In order to move forward in such a spiritual field as yoga, it requires not only time but tenacity and a drive to learn more.
“Yoga is not just movements and poses; it’s learning the proper techniques, perfecting them and knowing precisely how to perform them. At the same time, you let go of the negative, the bad, the ugly, the superficial and getting in tune with your inner self which is often lacking here.”
Did Hanan have a difficult time returning and helping society to get to know Hatha and Vinyasa Yoga? “Ironically it’s not society that is worrying but other trainers in your field. The first thing I always tell visitors is that we are all equal here; there is no hate and there is only peace. That is the essence of yoga, peace. What you encounter in the world is often not only disappointing but infuriating. There is too much competitiveness and you lose the true essence — peace, love, calmness — of becoming a yogi and an instructor. There was so much hate from outsiders and yet my students have shown enough love and appreciation to overcome the hate ten-fold. The reason is because I am good and confident enough to say it. I don’t need to be a part of an elite group to know how good I am; my training has taught me that I neither need it nor want to be a part of it,” she said. “To breathe is what I teach my students for just a couple of minutes; we train together as one, breathe together as one and let go of our baggage as one. No social classes, no nationalities, nothing. We are beautiful strong women and that’s what it is.”
The power that comes through breathing is an important aspect of her training.
“It’s the most relaxing and fulfilling part of my yoga sessions. To breathe is to live; there is the good and the bad but we exhale our toxins; we exhale our negativities and that makes us feel lighter, feel that we’re alive and a part of this great entity that is made to be happy.”
A number of yoga classes seem more interested in prices rather than the experience. It is hard to believe any school would only create a business out of such a spiritual journey.
“Numbers are just numbers and they have no relation to yoga whatsoever; to turn something as spiritual and beautiful as yoga into a business is an insult when yoga should be for everyone!” said Hanan.
Yoga stretches its way into Saudi Arabia
Yoga stretches its way into Saudi Arabia
The 2025 Grammy Award nominations are about to arrive. Here’s what to know
- The 2025 Grammy Awards will air Feb. 2 live on CBS and Paramount+ from the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles
Nominees will be announced during a video stream live on the Grammy website and the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel on Friday at 8 a.m. Pacific and 11 a.m. Eastern, kicking off with a pre-show 15 minutes earlier.
A host of talent is on deck to announce the nominees, including Gayle King, Jim Gaffigan and a long list of past Grammy winners: Brandy Clark, Kirk Franklin, David Frost, Robert Gordon, Kylie Minogue, Gaby Moreno, Deanie Parker, Ben Platt, Mark Ronson, Hayley Williams and last year’s best new artist recipient, Victoria Monét.
Only recordings commercially released in the US between Sept. 16, 2023 through Aug. 30, 2024 are eligible for nominations, so don’t expect to see album nods for Future’s “Mixtape Pluto” (though Future and Metro Boomin’s “We Don’t Trust You” is very likely to score a nomination), George Strait’s “Cowboys and Dreamers,” Tyler, the Creator’s “Chromakopia,” or “Warriors,” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first full post-“Hamilton” musical with Pulitzer finalist Eisa Davis.
There’s plenty of unknowns going into the announcements: Will Beyoncé and Post Malone receive nominations in the country music categories following the success of their massive albums “Cowboy Carter” and “F-1 Trillion,” respectively, even though they are megastars previously not directly associated with the genre?
Will Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” the biggest song of the year that combines his country twang with the familiar sample of J Kwon’s 2004 rap hit “Tipsy” dominate?
The 2025 Grammy Awards will air Feb. 2 live on CBS and Paramount+ from the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
Prison break: Monkeys escape from South Carolina medical research facility
- Alpha Genesis provides primates for research worldwide at its compound
- Alpha Genesis $12,600 in 2018 after dozens of primates escaped
Forty-three monkeys escaped from a compound used for medical research in South Carolina but the nearby police chief said there is “almost no danger” to the public.
“They are not infected with any disease whatsoever. They are harmless and a little skittish,” Yemassee Police Chief Gregory Alexander said Thursday morning.
The Rhesus macaque primates escaped from the Alpha Genesis facility Wednesday when a new employee didn’t fully shut an enclosure, Alexander said.
The monkeys are females weighing about 3 kilograms and are so young and small that they haven’t been used for testing, police said.
Alpha Genesis employees “currently have eyes on the primates and are working to entice them with food,” police said in a statement issued around noon Thursday.
The company usually handles escapes on site, but the monkeys got outside the compound about 1.6 kilometers from downtown Yemassee, Alexander said.
“The handlers know them well and usually can get them back with fruit or a little treat,” Alexander said by phone.
But rounding up these escapees is taking some more work. Alpha Genesis is taking the lead, setting up traps and using thermal imaging cameras to recapture the monkeys on the run, the chief said.
“There is almost no danger to the public,” Alexander said.
People living nearby need to shut their windows and doors so the monkeys can’t find a place to hide inside and if they see the primates, call 911 so company officials and police can capture them.
Alpha Genesis provides primates for research worldwide at its compound about 80 kilometers northeast of Savannah, Georgia, according to its website. The company did not respond to an email asking about Wednesday’s escape.
In 2018, federal officials fined Alpha Genesis $12,600 after dozens of primates escaped as well as for an incident that left a few others without water and other problems with how the monkeys were housed.
Officials said 26 primates escaped from the Yemassee facility in 2014 and an additional 19 got out in 2016.
The group Stop Animal Exploitation Now sent a letter to the US Department of Agriculture asking the agency to immediately send an inspector to the Alpha Genesis facility, conduct a thorough investigation and treat them as a repeated violator. The group was involved in the 2018 fine against the company.
“The clear carelessness which allowed these 40 monkeys to escape endangered not only the safety of the animals, but also put the residents of South Carolina at risk,” Michael Budkie, the executive director of the group, wrote in the Thursday morning letter.
Trump victory renews interest in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and other fictional dystopias
- Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic about a country in which women are brutally repressed has been high on the Amazon.com best seller list
NEW YORK: “The Handmaid’s Tale” is selling again.
Since President-elect Donald Trump clinched his return to the White House, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic about a country in which women are brutally repressed has been high on the Amazon.com best seller list. “The Handmaid’s Tale” was popular throughout Trump’s first term, along with such dark futuristic narratives as George Orwell’s “1984” and Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” both of which were in the Amazon top 40 as of Thursday afternoon. Another best-seller from Trump’s previous time in office, Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,” was in the top 10.
Pro-Trump books also were selling well. Former first lady Melania Trump’s memoir, “Melania,” was No. 1 on the Amazon list, and Vice President-elect JD Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” was in the top 10. Donald Trump’s photo book “Save America” was in the top 30.
At Barnes & Noble, “Fiction and non-fiction books that feature fascism, feminism, dystopian worlds and both right-and-left leaning politics rocketed up our sales charts with the election results,” according to Shannon DeVito, the chain’s director of books. She cited “Melania,” “On Tyranny” and Bob Woodward’s latest, “War,” which covers the responses of Trump and President Joe Biden to the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
DeVito also cited “a massive bump in dystopian fiction,” notably for “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “1984.”
First artwork by humanoid robot sells for $1.3 million
REUTERS: A portrait of English mathematician Alan Turing became the first artwork by a humanoid robot to be sold at auction, fetching $1,320,000 on Thursday.
The 2.2 meter (7.5 feet) portrait “A.I. God” by “Ai-Da,” the world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist, smashed pre-sale expectations of $180,000 when it went under the hammer at London auction house Sotheby’s Digital Art Sale.
“Today’s record-breaking sale price for the first artwork by a humanoid robot artist to go up for auction marks a moment in the history of modern and contemporary art and reflects the growing intersection between A.I. technology and the global art market,” said the auction house.
Ai-Da Robot, which uses AI to speak, said: “The key value of my work is its capacity to serve as a catalyst for dialogue about emerging technologies.”
Ai-Da added that a “portrait of pioneer Alan Turing invites viewers to reflect on the god-like nature of AI and computing while considering the ethical and societal implications of these advancements.”
The ultra-realistic robot, one of the most advanced in the world, is designed to resemble a human woman with a face, large eyes and a brown wig.
Ai-Da is named after Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer and was devised by Aidan Meller, a specialist in modern and contemporary art.
“The greatest artists in history grappled with their period of time, and both celebrated and questioned society’s shifts,” said Meller.
“Ai-Da Robot as technology, is the perfect artist today to discuss the current developments with technology and its unfolding legacy,” he added.
Ai-Da generates ideas through conversations with members of the studio, and suggested creating an image of Turing during a discussion about “A.I. for good.”
The robot was then asked what style, color, content, tone and texture to use, before using cameras in its eyes to look at a picture of Turing and create the painting.
Meller led the team that created Ai-Da with artificial intelligence specialists at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham in England.
Meller said Turing, who made his name as a World War II codebreaker, mathematician and early computer scientist, had raised concerns about the use of AI in the 1950s.
The artwork’s “muted tones and broken facial planes” seemingly suggested “the struggles Turing warned we will face when it comes to managing AI,” he said.
Ai-Da’s works were “ethereal and haunting” and “continue to question where the power of AI will take us, and the global race to harness its power,” he added.
@AIGOD_Aida
A portrait of renowned English mathematician Alan Turing became the first artwork by a humanoid robot to be sold at auction, fetching $1,320,000 on Thursday. the world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist,
Three charged in One Direction singer Liam Payne’s death
BUENOS AIRES: Three people have been charged in relation to One Direction singer Liam Payne’s death in a fall from his Buenos Aires hotel balcony last month, Argentine authorities said on Thursday.
The 31-year-old’s death shocked the world, and raised questions about how he had fallen.
A 911 call from a hotel employee the day Payne died warned that he had been acting aggressively and could have been under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
An autopsy revealed the former boy band member had traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his system when he died, a prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Thursday.
Payne’s body was handed over to his father, Geoff, over the weekend and flown back to his native England. Over the past few weeks, Geoff had been seen alongside longtime One Direction bodyguard, Paul Higgins, at the CasaSur hotel where his son died.
Those charged in Payne’s death include a suspected drug dealer, a hotel employee who may have provided Payne with the cocaine and a person who was close to the singer, the authorities said.
All are accused of playing a role in giving Payne the drugs, with the hotel employee accused of giving Payne cocaine at least twice during his stay and the alleged drug dealer believed to have provided it twice more two days before his death.
The person who was visiting with Payne is also charged with “abandonment of a person followed by death,” authorities said.
None of those charged were named, but will be notified and are prohibited from leaving the country, according to the statement.
The investigation into the circumstances of Payne’s death will continue, prosecutors said, adding that they were still trying to unlock the singer’s broken laptop.
Witnesses had told local media that they saw Payne smashing his laptop in the hotel lobby.
